One of the more interesting articles from my perspective was the McNamara piece “Constructing Authority in the European Union". The idea of constructing an identity is crucial to understanding bigger issues of sovereignty and authority in the current world environment.
One of the related issues we have discussed is the idea of how technology is challenging the traditional sovereignty of the nation state. This is not a new phenomenon. Martin Luther's 95 Theses were a challenge to the Catholic Church's authority in the pre-Westphalian system. A more modern example can be found with the spreading of communist ideology in Imperial Russia prior to the 1917 Revolution. In these cases ideology that challenged state authority were spread through written materials made possible by printing. In our current era one only needs a cell phone to be able to create, spread, or read a wide range of ideologies with few if any limits put on veracity.
The spread of ISIS is a great example of how creating an identity can be used to take sovereignty and public authority. By having a flag and an ideology they are able to maintain the identity of a nation state. Granted, this was only possible in the power vacuum of revolutionary Syria, but it provides a non-state example of identity formation and sovereignty in action. This is similar in form to the theory that McNamara postulated about a European Identity, although for very different aims.
This is important because in the future there may be competing notions of identity that may have an impact on state sovereignty. Will established nation states be able to maintain a national identity in the face of competing ideologies in the future?
You made an excellent point about the role communications technology can play in identity formation. I like your use of ISIS as an example of this. It's also interesting to think about how some European and Arabic leaders refused to call ISIS by its name in order to avoid legitimizing the group. That could almost be seen as a blatant attack on their identity or rather an attempt to try and hinder its development: (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27994277) I also agree that the issue identity maintenance vs. the formation of new identities will have a huge role to play in the future of sovereign nations and perhaps even the international environment as a whole.
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